Dear Friends and Supporters,
It is with deepest gratitude that I sit down to pen another Annual Report letter from the Hill Country Alliance (HCA). Our efforts to protect and preserve the things that make the Hill Country so special have never felt more urgent. Ongoing drought, explosive development, and the incredible pace of change have us all feeling the tenuous nature of our hold on the Hill Country as we know it. That feeling is most clear and salient for me when I look to take my children to a Hill Country swimming hole to cool off in the heat of summer, only to find our favorite haunts dry and dusty. Unless we take steps to protect them, will the springs, creeks, and rivers of this beating heart of Texas be here in the next 50 years? In the next five?
And yet everywhere we look, reasons for optimism are sprouting. Neighbors are pushing back on “development-as-usual” patterns—and winning! Leaders are coming together to find new ways to incentivize growth that protects and enhances our natural resources. Opportunities are growing for more folks to connect to the Hill Country with the expansion of parks, trails, and protected open spaces. And the network of passionate individuals working to protect the Hill Country has never been stronger.
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As you’ll see in the pages of this report, HCA is creating deep and lasting conservation impacts in all of our program areas. We deepened our strategic focus on convening local leaders and elected officials from across the Hill Country in 2024. Our second year of the Hill Country Leadership Institute was a huge success. We brought together 15 local officials and key staff together for ten months of learning about topics as varied—and vital—as One Water infrastructure, local development planning, and legislative priorities. We hosted three County to County workshops, which brought together 50+ regional officials and staff from 11 counties for discussion centered on how counties can manage growth and preserve natural resources.
Water and land resource management remain cornerstones of our mission. This year, we supported grassroots water groups by helping launch the new nonprofit, Kerr County Water Alliance (KCWA), and supporting the Pedernales River Alliance in Gillespie County. We worked with partners in the Camp Bullis Sentinel Landscape to deploy new funding to protect military readiness and support landowners’ stewardship goals in the area around Joint Base San Antonio. Our efforts to advance One Water in the Hill Country included hosting the second annual Hill Country One Water Conference in Boerne and partnering with local cities to pursue funding for resilient projects.
Our Night Sky program embodies HCA’s strategic approach to conservation in the region. Through this program alone we engaged more than 3,000 people in 2024. We worked with Texan by Nature’s Conservation Wrangler Program to create a new Night Sky Lighting Guide and supported ongoing night sky preservation efforts across the region. We launched the first-ever Hill Country Alliance Night Sky Preservation Fund and awarded more than $15,000 to support our partners in hosting events, creating outreach materials, and retrofitting lights. The stars at night will remain bright thanks to the collective efforts of so many dark sky champions.
This year we will celebrate 20 years of work for the Hill Country. We are eternally grateful for the incredible group of partners, supporters, collaborators and friends that we have built over those years, all bound by a shared passion for the Texas Hill Country. We hope we can count on your continued support as we embark on the next twenty years. Your generosity and dedication have been critical to our success. We couldn’t do this without you.
I’m for the Hill Country,
Katherine Romans, Executive Director
Hill Country Alliance
March 2025